Friday, 18 August 2017

Jah Prayzah’s forthcoming album titled “Kutonga Kwaro” has been dragged into Zanu PF succession politics by some people pushing for Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to take over from President Robert Mugabe. Though the album, Jah Prayzah’s seventh, will only be released on October 13, some opportunistic Mnangagwa followers have renamed the award-winning artiste’s yet-to-be-released project “Kutonga Kwaro Garwe” in line with the Vice President’s nickname. An amended cover of Jah Prayzah’s forthcoming album inscribed “Kutonga Kwaro Garwe” has flooded social media with Higher education minister Jonathan Moyo- who is said to be aligned to the rival G40 faction- posting it on his Twitter page and ominously asking: Is this for real?

This is not the first time Jah Prayzah has been sucked into the Zanu PF succession puzzle. Last year some members of the Lacoste faction claimed that the Uzumba-born artiste’s song “Mudhara Achauya” was a prophectic track about Mnangagwa’s ascension to power. The song praises a powerful father figure —Shumba inoruma (a vicious lion). Curiously, Mnangagwa is of the Shumba totem. The G40 faction has also latched onto “Mudhara Achauya.” It is now the “theme song” at Mugabe’s ongoing Presidential Youth Interface Rallies currently taking place across the country. Before the president addresses these rallies, Mudhara Achauya is played as Mugabe makes his way to the podium. But some people have questioned the appropriateness of the song since Mugabe is 93 years old.

But Jah Prayzah’s manager, Keen Mushapaidze, told the Daily News that the award-winning artiste’s camp was not losing sleep over the fact that two successive Jah Prayzah albums have been linked to the contentious Zanu PF succession issue.“Art is out there to inspire people to talk. What we do as artists is interpreted in different ways by different people. It only means you are still creative if people come up with various meanings to what you give them. It should never be too obvious,” Mushapaidze told the Daily News.

He added that the music star was not worried that politicians were continually seeking to use his music to further their own ends.“We wouldn’t know the various reasons as to why people interpret music in their different ways but at the end of the day as long as it gets people dancing and enjoying, that’s what matters the most to us,” he said.

Mushapaidze was unwilling to explain what the song “Kutonga Kwaro” is all about.“Let us wait for the 13th of October for the answer to that,” was all he was prepared to say on the matter. Daily News